Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the isle Ophiusa); but still greatest he the midst, Now Dragon grown, larger than whom the sun Engender'd in the Pythian vale on slime, Huge Python, and his pow'r no less he seem'd Above the rest still to retain. They all Him follow'd, issuing forth to th' open field, Where all yet left of that revolted rout Heav'n-fall'n, in station stood or just array, Sublime with expectation when to see In triumph issuing forth their glorious chief: They saw, but other sight instead, a crowd Of ugly serpents. Horror on them fell, And horrid sympathy; for what they saw, They felt themselves now changing. Down their
Down fell both spear and shield, down they as fast, And the dire hiss renew'd, and the dire form Catch'd by contagion, like in punishment,
As in their crime. Thus was th' applause they meant Turn'd to exploding hiss; triumph to shame, 546 Cast on themselves from their own mouths. There stood
A grove hard by, sprung up with this their change, His will who reigns above, to aggravate Their penance, laden with fair fruit, like that Which grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve Used by the Tempter. On that prospect strange Their earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining For one forbidden tree a multitude
Now risen, to work them further woe or shame; 555 Yet parch'd with scalding thirst and hunger fierce, Though to delude them sent, could not abstain, But on they roll'd in heaps, and up the trees Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks That curl'd Megæra. Greedily they pluck'd The fruitage, fair to sight, like that which grew
527. Lucan, Phars. ix. 696. in which the account is given of Perseus slaying the Gorgon.-Ophiusa is an island in the Mediterranean, which was deserted by its inhabitants, on account of the enormous multitude of serpents there.
530. The Python was a serpent said to have sprung from the lime that was left after the Deucalian deluge.
560. Megara, one of the furies.
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flamed; This more delusive, not the touch, but taste Deceived: they fondly thinking to allay Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit Chew'd bitter ashes; which th' offended taste With spatt'ring noise rejected. Oft they' assay'd, Hunger and thirst constraining, drugg'd as oft With hatefullest disrelish, writhed their jaws With soot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell Into the same illusion, not as Man
Whom they triumph'd once lapsed. Thus were they
And worn with famin, long and ceaseless hiss, Till their lost shape, permitted, they resumed; Yearly enjoin'd, some say, to undergo
This annual humbling certain number'd days, To dash their pride, and joy for Man seduced. However, some tradition they dispersed Among the Heathen of their purchase got,
And fabled how the Serpent, whom they call'd Ophion with Eurynome, the wide
Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driv'n And Ops, ere yet Dictæan Jove was born.
Mean while, in Paradise the hellish pair
Too soon arrived, Sin there in Pow'r before, Once actual, now in body, and to dwell Habitual habitant; behind her Death
Close following, pace for pace, not mounted yet On his pale horse: to whom Sin thus began:
562. It is said by Josephus that trees were to be seen about this devoted spot, which bore fruit delicious to the eye, but falling into ashes the moment it was touched.
573. Bentley reads with thirst and famin dire.
574. This idea is supposed to have been taken from the old romances, or from Ariosto, Can. 43. st. 98
581. So true it is that the most ancient mythological fables bear evident traces of having originated in traditions derived from the scripture history.-Ophion, or the serpent, was undoubtedly Satan; and Eurynome, or the wide-ruling, must have referred to Eve, who was so called from the ambitious desires with which she eat the forbidden fruit.-Jortin says, Milton took the idea from Apollonius, i.
586. Sin in pow'r, that is, there was a possibility of its betraying man. Actual once, namely, when Adam really sinned; and in body, when it became always present and active.
Second of Satan sprung, all-conqu'ring Death, What think'st thou of our empire now, tho' earn'd With travel difficult? Not better far
Than still at Hell's dark threshold to' have sat watch, Unnamed, undreaded, and thyself half starved? 595 Whom thus the Sin-born monster answer'd soon: To me, who with eternal famine pine, Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven; There best, where most with ravin I may meet; Which here, tho' plenteous, all too little seems To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound corpse. To whom the incestuous mother thus reply'd: Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and flow'rs, Feed first, on each beast next, and fish, and fowl, No homely morsels; and whatever thing The scythe of Time mows down, devour unspared; Till I in Man, residing through the race, His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all infect,
And season him thy last and sweetest prey.
This said, they both betook them sev'ral ways, 610 Both to destroy or unimmortal make
All kinds, and for destruction to mature Sooner or later; which th' Almighty seeing, From his transcendent seat the Saints among,
To those bright Orders utter'd thus his voice:
See with what heat these dogs of Hell advance
To waste and havoc yonder world, which I So fair and good created, and had still Kept in that state, had not the folly' of Man Let in these wasteful furies, who impute Folly to me! So doth the prince of Hell And his adherents, that with so much ease I suffer them to enter and possess
A place so heav'nly, and conniving seem
To gratify my scornful enemies,
That laugh as if, transported with some fit
Of passion, I to them had quitted all,
At random yielded up to their misrule,
And know not that I call'd and drew them thither, My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth Which Man's polluting sin with taint hath shed
601. Unhide-bound, not filled out, with a skin hanging loose and flabby.
On what was pure, till cramm'd and gorged, nigh With suck'd and glutted offal, at one sling [burst Of thy victorious arm, well-pleasing Son,
Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave at last 635 Thro' Chaos hurl'd, obstruct the mouth of Hell For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws.
Then Heav'n and Earth renew'd, shall be made pure To sanctity, that shall receive no stain:
Till then, the curse pronounced on both precedes. 640 He ended, and the heav'nly audience loud Sung Halleluiah, as the sound of seas,
Through multitude that sung: Just are thy ways, Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works;
Who can extenuate thee! Next, to the Son, 645 Destined Restorer of mankind, by whom New Heav'n and Earth shall to the ages rise,
Or down from Heav'n descend. Such was their song, While the Creator, calling forth by name
His mighty Angels, gave them several charge, 650 As sorted best with present things. The sun Had first his precept so to move, so shine, As might affect the earth with cold and heat Scarce tolerable; and from the north to call Decrepit winter; from the south to bring Solstitial summer's heat. To the blank moon Her office they prescribed; to th' other five Their planetary motions and aspects In sextile, square, and trine, and opposite Of noxious efficacy, and when to join In synod unbenign; and taught the fix'd Their influence malignant when to show'r, Which of them rising with the sun, or falling, Should prove tempestuous; to the winds they set Their corners, when with bluster to confound Sea, air, and shore, the thunder when to roll With terror through the dark aereal hall. Some say, he bid his Angels turn askance The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more From the sun's axle; they with labour push'd Oblique the centric globe. Some say, the sun Was bid turn reius from th' equinoctial road
643. Rev. xv. 3. xvi. 7. 656. Blank moon, like the French word blanc, white.
Like distant breadth to Taurus with the seven Atlantic Sisters, and the Spartan Twins Up to the Tropic Crab; thence down amain By Leo, and the Virgin, and the Scales, As deep as Capricorn, to bring in change Of seasons to each clime; else had the spring Perpetual smiled on earth with verdant flow'rs, Equal in days and nights, except to those Beyond the polar circles; to them day Had unbenighted shone, while the low sun, To recompense his distance, in their sight Had rounded still th' horizon, and not known Or east or west, which had forbid the snow From cold Estotiland, and south as far Beneath Magellan. At that tasted fruit The sun, as from Thyéstean banquet, turn'd
His course intended; else how had the world Inhabited, though sinless, more than now, Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat? These changes in the Heav'ns, tho' slow, produced Like change on sea and land; sideral blast, Vapour and mist, and exhalation hot, Corrupt and pestilent: now from the north Of Norumbega, and the Samoed shore,
Bursting their brazen dungeon, arm'd with ice, And snow, and hail, and stormy gust, and flaw, Boreas, and Cæcias, and Argestes loud,
And Thrascias, rend the woods, and seas upturn; 700 With adverse blast upturns them from the south Notus and Afer black, with thund'rous clouds From Serraliona. Thwart of these as fierce Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds, Eurus and Zephyr, with their lateral noise, Sirocco and Libecchio. Thus began Outrage from lifeless things; but Discord, first,
686. Estotiland, a country in North America, near Hudson's Bay.-Magellan, a part of South America.
688. Thyestean banquet; Thyestès is said to have been banqueted by his brother on the bodies of his murdered children. 696. Norumbega, a province of North America.-Samoieda, a province of Muscovy.
699. The names of the north, north-west, north-east, the south, and south-west winds.-Serraliona, a range of mountains to the south-west of Africa.-Sirocco and Libecchio, the south-east and south-west winds.
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